Up and over – From Foix and French, to Cataluña and Catalá Days 6 and 7

 

We’d stopped once before in Foix, after having driven past its enchanting mediaeval chateau and town so many times because it was raining. The time we did stop…it rained and as we’d still not ventured into town to sample its historic delights, this time, we decided, approaching in dry and sunny(ish) weather for the first time ever, we’d camp up for a night or two and try our luck.

 

After a warm and smiley welcome from the owner of Camping du Lac, think a French and sexier version of ‘Big’ in Sex and the City, and who was very, very patient with Mr B’s faltering French, we settled down to an early lunch. During our welcome chat, Monsieur Big had kindly pointed out that we could access the riverside walk via a campsite gate, advised that the walk was ‘long’ and that the chateau was closed on Mondays. I think our trips to Foix are hexed!

 

However, the sun was shining and the afternoon was free, so we headed Foix-wards. The first part of the walk along the riverbank was interesting and we saw a narrow stretch of land that belonged to someone with a penchant for making art out of a variety of discarded or otherwise acquired bits of recyclables. As well as a whole field full of bits of signage and who knows what, s/he had made this little balcony overlooking the Ariège river, complete with quotes… maybe Rose is a real person who has no words for what she sees…

 

 

After this brief moment of contemplation however, the rest of the walk turned into a bit of a slog along the man road and we began to wonder whether we’d have been better off on the bus – but then we’d have missed the homage to Rose!

 

Eventually we reached the outskirts of Foix, with the old centre situated on a rise the other side of the river.

 

 

We’d read of Foix in some of the books we took on one of our earlier trips that featured bits of the tragic history of the Cathars in the Occitan region during the Albigensian crusades in the 1200s. Our initial view certainly leant itself to that dark period in French history.

 

 

On crossing the river into the old quarter, we were surprised to find it very quiet, run down and pretty desolate. The castle and museum were, of course, closed, but nevertheless impressive close-up. We read later that Foix had seen its heyday in the 1400s and it might be fair to say that it seemed like it was still in decline. Maybe it would have come to life on a different day of the week – we’ll no doubt pass by again and it will be interesting if we are tempted to have another go – but not on a Monday!

 

Arriving back at camp and more than ready for our now customary afternoon tea, Mr B tackled the first of what we hope will be a small list of running repairs on Evie. We rely on our skylight blinds to keep insects and unwelcome light at night out and, not for the first time, one of the very fiddly bits of string that makes it all work had become detached.

 

 

This was the first time we’d had to do a repair on the road though and after much head scratching, cussing and experimentation, plus the addition of a small screw to replace a bit of broken plastic, it was up and running again. We would happily buy some new skylight inners if they were available, but as with so much camping gear, you have to buy the whole thing, including the Perspex skylight – so we’ll mend and make do for now!

 

After a suitably dark and insect free night we woke to lowering clouds and decided to head off in the almost certain knowledge that we’d be climbing the Pyrenees in the rain – again! But, as we left the lowlands and rain behind we saw that there was blue sky waiting higher up, and, aided by some new roads since we were last here, it wasn’t too long before we were on the switchback climb up to the Col de Puymorens, the old border between France and Spain (now a bit further on at Puigcerda). At 1915m high it’s a good test of driving and engine (over)heating – something we have got used to, as Evie’s temperature gauge climbed towards the red…

 

 

It was a reminder of how we used to freak out that the needle was always creeping towards the red no mater how gently we drove, not realising until we went over the Saint Gotthard pass in Switzerland some years back (slightly higher at 2106m) and the fan actually kicked in for the first time in all the years we’d been driving Evie, that Iveco engines are just designed like that! Some sort of clutch controlled fan activation magic we were told by much amused Iveco mechanics!

 

Pulling over to admire the view in the parking area at the top of the pass and to have a bite to eat, our lunch prep also gave us a great illustration of atmospheric pressure this high up and it also reminded us to open the portaloo very gently…!

 

 

After lunch we headed off towards blue skies and Spain, marvelling at the epic views and reliability of better weather on the other side of the mountains – again!

 

Our route down out of the Pyrenees on the Spanish side is another old favourite, heading west to La Seu d’Urgell and then south west towards Lleida. This stretch runs alongside a number of very impressive stretches of the Embalse de Rialb – a very long and winding reservoir. We usually do lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ on this stretch but this year there was hardly any water to be seen at all – apparently it’s less than 25% full, meaning that fire fighting planes that take water for forest fires can’t use it – a double whammy for the region.

 

This leg also relies on a series of impressive small ‘tunels’ in the rock, this year blighted by roadworks, so plenty of time to admire the scenery but a more tiring drive. In the past we’d have aimed for the free Aire in the town of Ascó, just off the road and close to a nuclear power plant on the river Ebro. It might sound a bit grim but it’s been a useful stopover before, albeit a bit road noisy. However this time we felt the need of a shower and a decent night’s sleep, so we decided to ring the changes and see whether our trusty ‘Park4Night’ App had anything to offer before we reached Lleida, and sure enough, it came up with a new site just off the C-12, a fabulous road that hugs the Ebro pretty much to the delta on the coast.

 

 

Camping D’Alòs de Balaguer in the village of the same name was described as ‘isolated… unfinished… and functional’ in the general info section of the App; not exactly enticing, but the score of 4.67 out of 5 was enough for us to give it a go. As we bumped our way across the unmade road and up the other side of the very grand entrance wall, we found it apparently deserted, definitely isolated and obviously unfinished with lots of plant and building materials scattered around.

 

But as we drove further in and up the terraced pitches, we could see someone and a dog sat outside the reception/bar area. Expecting a Català ‘tancat’ to tell us the site was closed after a hesitant ‘Bon dià’ from Mr B, he was pleased to hear a welcoming ‘yes we are open, park where you like’ in Castillian Spanish – which is just as well as he had used up 2/3s of his Català in that brief exchange!

 

Alina (one of the young owners) was incredibly friendly and chatty and after the formalities of registration were over (passports still required in Spain it seems) she very kindly brought us a gift of some fresh tomatoes from her allotment garden.

 

It turned out that we were the only campers on the site and although they do get busy with hikers and paraglider enthusiasts, tonight we would have the place to ourselves.

 

After dinner outside, complete with stunning views across the valley to the Serra del Montsec and its protected nature zone, we settled down to what we fully expected to be a peaceful night, happy in the knowledge that there would be no noisy campers – or guests at the bar, as Alina’s two visitors had left by the time darkness fell.

 

Gazing up at the stars (unusual to be able to do this on a Spanish site as they are usually very brightly lit) we drifted off into a peaceful slumber… until, at 11pm and every quarter hour thereafter, we were reminded of our religious shortcomings as the bell from the nearby village church chimed, and chimed, all night long. Usually Mr B can block out the sound of church bells, but somehow the clear and otherwise still mountain air seemed to accentuate their intrusiveness.

 

Making the morning tea with bleary eyes, Mr B asked Mrs B how she had slept… ‘What bells?’ came the reply…

 

Fortunately, it was Mrs B’s shift to drive the next leg, and tempted as he was to have a chat with one of the village’s 131 inhabitants to enquire why 15 minute reminders of the countdown to morning Mass were necessary, he dozed away happily as Mrs B negotiated the winding road back to the C-12 and the coast at the Ebro delta, where sunshine and sea awaited!

 

 

S&J

06.10.22

 

 

A quick note to those who have commented!

Firstly, thanks for the comments and wishes. We did try to respond individually on the blog but so far have failed to make it work - doh!

So if you do want to have a chat, it might be easier to send an email until we post an update to say we have worked it out... 

See you soon!

 

S

On the road again - days 1 to 5. Of fines, friends and faeces…

Leaving home is often a challenging time: maybe we’ve failed to liaise on who was responsible for remembering what; or we’re running a bit later than we’d like; but this time trumped all previous ones. 

 

Who would have imagined that we’d get a parking ticket loading up the van on our own driveway! So, thanks to our local Civil Enforcement Officer who decided that, in the six minutes we were preparing the next load of gear to take into Evie, we were infringing our local parking regulations by parking across the driveway entrance. Next time, should we be loading up over one of the two hour-long permit only weekday slots, perhaps we should have someone standing guard!

 

The trip to the ferry at Newhaven passed without further incident and we departed 15 minutes early at 16:45, blessed with some late afternoon sun as the boat manouevered out of the berth. This was followed by a gorgeous sunset as we passed the other DFDS ferry heading back to England.

 

We’d discussed the new post-Brexit rules on what fresh foodstuffs you can/can’t take into France now (not much it turns out, apart from bananas, pineapples and durians, but no milk for our morning cuppa). Undaunted, and feeling a bit rebellious at the pointlessness of it all, we decided to follow our usual approach of emptying our home fridge into the van fridge in order not to waste food and as it turned out, the only difference on exiting the port at Dieppe was not that les Douanes inspected the van and confiscated all our non-approved foodstuffs, but just the novelty of having our passports stamped like the ‘good old days’! Hurrah for this laissez-faire approach!

 

Marvelling at the quality of French roads (it’s been a while) and impressed with the new-to-us dual carriageway to speed us on our journey, the drive south from the coast was a real pleasure, and we arrived at the lovely free Aire at Montville, just north of Rouen, comfortably before midnight. Just like so many earlier trips, we managed to nab the last van space once more. All bar one of the other camping-caristes were French (another Brit): it will be interesting to see who our fellow travellers are in this brave new post-Brexit world…

 

Montville is only about an hour’s drive from Dieppe. There’s a good boulangerie for the obligatory day one croissants and baguette and the Aire is beside a small lake that makes for a great stroll before heading further south.

 

 

The journey through Rouen is, for us, frequently marred by one or more ‘navigation challenges’ (Satnav is the devil’s work and we still rely on paper maps and sharing the responsibility) and after a period of three years since our last transit across the city we shouldn’t have been surprised that it would be any different this time.

 

What we hadn’t anticipated though, was that our entire ‘west-east’ route would have been replaced by an ‘east-west’ dedicated bus route (the TEOR) that meant we had to resort to the tried and tested ‘keep the river on the right’ mantra as we found ourselves squeezed into narrow and non-HGV lanes. 

 

Previously we’d not have been worried about Evie’s HGV status, as to all intents and purposes, she looks like any other 3.5t campervan. Not this year though, as our garish and bright yellow ‘angles morts’ stickers that are now mandatory for any HGV in France, were advertising to anyone and everyone that we really shouldn’t be where we were – oops!

 

Breathing a big sigh of relief that we hadn’t been pulled over by the time we cleared the outskirts of Rouen, we agreed that next time we’d take the free auto-route across the city – lesson learned!

 

As lunchtime approached we reminded each other that this part of the route is not littered with picturesque places to pull over for a nibble, so Mrs B started to look at options for an Aire not too far off the route. Surprising both of us, she found one in Nonancourt – somewhere we usually speed past having spent a not-too-comfortable night free camping in a side street there many years ago.

 

And what a cracking find it was! Seven parking bays, no charge and each with electricity (also free) if needed, water and waste and with a maximum stay of 48 hours, it’s situated next to a lovely municipal park, with picnic benches by the river. Chatting with a British couple who were overnighting there, and like us, on their first trip in three years post-Covid, we heard that the Aire had been there a while and was a regular stop for them. 

 

Thank you Nonancourt, we’ll certainly visit again.

 

 

 

Not content with finding such a great Aire for lunch, Mrs B then set herself the challenge of a new Aire for our second overnight stop south of Orleans. 

 

Which is how we found ourselves on the second night at another free Aire in Jouy-le-Potier, where we had a choice of pitch as there was no-one else there. We chose a secluded spot under a huge oak tree, and apart from the odd acorn dropping on the roof, we spent a peaceful night, having been joined later by two French campervans.

 

As is often the case on Aires, fellow campers are usually friendly and we had a lovely chat with a young French couple who live in their motorhome with their two gorgeous retrievers, travelling between France and Spain. Later, we reflected on the very different attitude to individual van dwellers here, where it’s relatively easy to park up overnight with water and waste facilities, compared to the punitive stance and height barriers across much of the UK.

We love France!

 

 

After buying more croissants and a baguette in the village (apart from loving the food, it’s part of our contribution when using free Aires) we headed off with great excitement towards Argenton-sur-Creuse, where we were set to meet up with friends or ours we’d not seen since 2019 who were heading north. Having failed to meet up with them in the UK, it was fantastic to know that at last we’d managed to organise a get together! 

 

Swapping notes via WhatsApp as we converged on Camping les Chambons, we arrived within 10 minutes of each other – to find reception abandoned, no notice to say ‘back in 20 minutes’ or any other clue, but plenty of helpful campers offering advice about what to do in the meantime! 

 

Luckily the site manager arrived not too long afterwards and with her ‘Gallic charm’, registered us and sent us on our way to choose our pitches, leaving us to wonder whether what appeared to be an absence of apology may have been lost in translation…

 

 

Like all good friendships, although it had been a while since we had seen Dave and Jan, we soon fell into a good old chat-a-thon, followed by lush tucker and drinks until ‘just after’ the 1000 curfew…

 

As Mrs B and I had never stopped at Argenton before, we took advantage of the sunny weather in the morning to explore the town, meeting up with Dave and Jan in the afternoon to explore the Romano-Gallic site of Argentomagus, and its much advertised amphitheatre.

 

The town was a real gem, with its ruined Roman bridge…

 

and picturesque riverside buildings…

 

 

it’s certainly somewhere we’d come back to.

 

The trip to Argentomagus turned out to be more than we had expected, in that after a couple of hours in the incredibly informative and well organised museum/visitor centre, we had reached the end of the trip without actually seeing an amphitheatre… 

 

Encouraged by what looked like an icon for a Roman amphitheatre on a nearby display board (but not at the site we had spent a couple of hours exploring) Mr B went back to reception to find out that it was actually ‘ten minutes’ away.

 

So brandishing a map that looked cunningly like a rough sketch, Mr B confidently led the way to what was bound to be the highlight of the visit…

 

Except that through a combination of poor map reading/drawing, it took 30 minutes to get there. And when we did, well, perhaps you can draw your own conclusions by the look on Mr B and Jan’s faces…

 

as well as the amphitheatre itself…

 

 

Maybe having those memories of visits to sites of antiquity in Italy and Sicily in years gone by didn’t help!

 

Bidding fond farewells to Dave and Jan after more delicious food and drinks under their awning on the final night, we promised to try and not leave it quite so long next time – pandemics notwithstanding!

 

Our trip further south started in persistent rain, and before long we were wondering out loud whether this would be another year where the siren call of sunshine on the other side of the Pyrenees would be tempting us into an early exit from France…

 

But no! The weather improved and soon we were lunching at another free Aire at Lamotte Beuvron – one of our favourites for a quick stop. Usually we’d take a pic of the fountains alongside the Aire, but the drought this year had reduced the water level too far for them to be operable. The picnic however, was as good as ever!

 

 

As the weather continued to improve we decided to tempt fate and see if Mrs B could magic up another Aire we’d not been to – and sure enough she did, this time at Auterive, south of Toulouse. Situated alongside a canal that feeds the local hydro-electric station, with the river Ariège adding to the charm, we joined the other campervans (all French) under the rows of neatly pollarded plane trees beside the canal.

 

 We’d noticed as darkness fell, the gentle sound of something falling from the trees above, and having slept through the odd acorn dropping at Jouy-le-Potier, thought nothing of it, although we did wonder why our immediate neighbours had moved to the other side of the parking area at dusk…

 

That puzzle was solved when we opened the blackout blind in the morning to discover that the dramatic swooping flock of Martinets we’d seen the previous evening, and whose chirping we had enjoyed over dinner, had been roosting above and left us a little gift…

 

 

Climbing up on our collapsible ladder, Mr B soon saw that they had been more generous than we could possibly have imagined!

 

After what seemed like an age, but was probably only an hour, the copious amount of bird poop had been cleaned off enough to allow us to see out of the skylights and for the solar panels to function, and we made a note to be more circumspect the next time we choose a tree to park under!

 

S&J

27.09.22

2022 - we are off again - at last!

What with Covid, post-Brexit changes and one or two other challenges, we are eventually heading off to Europe again in Evie the Iveco camper, after a hiatus of more than three years!

We'll be travelling south through France and then crossing into Spain - but beyond that we will be deciding as we go...

It's been a while since we've blogged and we'll be grappling with post-Brexit data roaming amongst other changes - and charges, so the entries might be a bit sporadic, but we will try our best to catch up at least once a week.

As before, feel free to use the comments facility.

Thought we'd try this pic as a test - our new mandatory UK sticker...

A bientôt

Steve and Julie

Coast to Coast in two days – almost!

Finding ourselves in the bizarre situation of heading north to enjoy cooler weather (!) we discovered that this year’s great leap north looked to be a relatively easy affair, as we were not that far from the fabulous and free A25 motorway, which we could take all the way to Clermont Ferrand.

Making sure we were well stocked with all our favourite southern goodies (including a stop at the excellent local wine cooperative in Sérignan), we managed to head onto the A25 by midday, not entirely sure of how far we would get, but grateful that we should get a good chunk of the route home out of the way.

Apart from the heat being pretty intense in the mid 30s; our non-aircon cab maintaining the same temperature as outside for most of the time; and our shouting skills becoming finely tuned as we battled over the wind noise from the open windows to hear each other – the first leg was problem free.

We stopped for a break at the roadside aire near Garabit to take a look at the fabulous viaduct/bridge, built by none other than Gustave Eiffel of tower fame. In years gone by we would have driven past it a good number of times, but this was the first occasion that we’d actually stopped to take a peek. Built in 1885 and the highest bridge in the world at the time, it’s still in use today although with speed limits, and is a good reminder of the building skills of the 19^th century.

Mrs B was on duty for finding somewhere to stop for the night, and she soon spotted that we might be able to make it to a small but lovely lakeside aire that we had last visited in 2012, in St Pardoux. It only has spaces for four campervans and is accessed via a narrow road a few miles into the countryside – so we knew we were taking a gamble, but took some comfort in the large number of campsites not too far away – just in case.

We had been tailing a couple of other campervans as we headed towards the small village, where we would need to turn off to get to the aire. And sure enough, they both turned off in the direction we were heading…

Luckily, they also both turned off towards one of the campsites, so our spirits soared that we might stand more of a chance of nabbing one of the four places. And sure enough we did, with two vacant spots left – phew!

With enough space to get the table and chairs out for our evening meal (and noting that both of our French neighbours were already tucking in) we heaved a big sigh of relief that our gamble had paid off. And it didn’t take long before our neighbours wandered past to say hello, looking as is so often the case at our Scottish flagged number plate and asking where we were from, in French of course.

For regular readers and people who know him, yet again Mr B didn’t let his limited grasp of French get in the way of a conversation, little expecting that his new bezzy mate Jerome would keep him talking for an hour whilst Mrs B was left to labour over the food. Even its arrival and the commencement of eating and drinking didn’t deter Jerome from his desire for a natter. And neither did Mr B’s obvious linguistic limitations put him off ranging across a range of topics, including of course ‘Le Brexit’!

We figured that Jerome must have been pretty starved of conversation and/or was just one of those super-friendly people out there, but we did benefit enormously from his sharing of an App that was new to us for seeking out places to camp up overnight (or park during the day). Park4night.com is another Dutch managed app that works reliably all over Europe and, as we discovered subsequently, was pretty useful in locating some interesting places to sleep for the night. Used in conjunction with the Camper Contact and ACSI apps we had been using for a while, and this year’s other discovery, Pass E’tapes, we came to learn that we now had some pretty reliable resources to do more advance planning than ever before – so thanks Jerome!

After a lovely peaceful and cool night, (as St Pardoux is high enough to cool down overnight) we got off to an (unusual for us) early start as we continued towards the northern coast. It turned into a longer and slower day, but we managed to get as far as St Rémy-sur-Avre where one of our apps showed us a good value Municipal campsite. Coincidentally, we had stopped here before to have lunch, never guessing that there was a campsite in the middle of the village! We knew we could have gone on further, but as we had left enough time to spend a few days on the Normandy coast before our ferry, we decided there was no rush.

With the weather still holding steady in the mid-30s, it didn’t take us long on arrival to find a spacious and shady pitch tucked away on the edge of the site. And what an amazing view through the skylight in the morning!

With all available skylights and windows fully open and the (almost silent) skylight fan on full to maximise airflow and to try and drop the inside temperature as much as possible, (as the Canicule sat stubbornly over this part of France and kept the night time temperatures in the high 20s), the hum of nearby aircon units on turbo from the large office block across the other side of the site, replaced the southern drone of cicadas. And although we were both used to the background noise of cicadas, Mr B struggled to convince himself that this noise was close enough to ignore!

Making another unusually early start, we stopped for lunch at the aire at Lamotte-Beuvron– another regular spot for us from the past. We’ve not been there for a while and were amused to see that there is now a floating restaurant on the small artificial lake, well positioned to admire the fountains and capture more of the tourist-euro…

We used the stop in the shade of the trees to make some decisions on where to stay near Dieppe, having sworn last year that we would swerve the aire at the port at all costs because of the inevitable noise from the arrival of our morning ferry! Using our growing suite of helpful apps, we plumped for an ACSI site in St Valery-en-Caux that would give us a discounted rate until our very last night, when we would then need to pay what we expected to be a small-ish increase (Normandy not having the pull of the Mediterranean, we thought…).

We’d decided to go to Dieppe before the site, so we could have a more relaxed ‘last chance’ shop in the large Auchan hypermarket there, as well as test the journey time to and from the site. So we arrived at Camping Etennemare mid afternoon and were presented with a free choice from a good number of vacant pitches, and also the news that our ACSI rate of €16 a night would rise to €28 for our final night! Clearly this part of Normandy was more popular than we had anticipated – as we soon discovered when most of the vacant pitches filled in over the weekend!

We found the site to be very ‘English’ in its layout, with box hedges surrounding a lot of the large grass pitches and quite unlike most of the other stops we had made across France. Still, with the weather set fair the day we arrived, a heated swimming pool and a short walk into the town where we could have our French ‘last supper’ as we planned, it seemed to be a great alternative to the noisy port-side aire in Dieppe. It certainly had some novelty value in terms of having one of the tiniest caravans we had ever seen!

We managed to squeeze one last day of pleasant sunny temperatures lazing about on the site, before, on our final day of the trip (and in classic return-to-the-UK stylie we have experienced before) the weather changed for the worse, with cloud, drizzle and temperatures almost half those we had been used to! It didn’t stop us from exploring the town of St Valery-en-Caux though, along with loads of locals undeterred by the weather as they swarmed to either the enormous boules festival right near the site, or the mackerel festival at the port. With huge queues waiting for barbequed mackerel, we plumped to lunch on home made quiches from a small stall on the quayside, and very warm and delicious they were too.

We discovered that as well as the charming mediaeval centre of the old town, and a very beautiful contemporary church with stunning stained glass windows, built after the war, St Valery-en-Caux was (in)famous as the location of the ‘other’ and untold Dunkirk of 1940 when around 9,000 allied troops were surrounded by the German army whilst they awaited rescue from the beaches. Unfortunately, the ships never came and although most of the troops were British (the 51^st Highland Division) they were under French Army control and on the 12^th June French officers surrendered. With escape virtually impossible, the 51^st Division also surrendered. Over 1000 soldiers had been killed and 4000 wounded. 8,000 were marched into Germany and Poland to spend the rest of the war working in fields, factories and the salt mines of Thuringia alongside inmates of the Nazi concentration camps, as slave labour. We also discovered that a few soldiers to the west of the town managed to escape and a few made it on foot to Le Havre and were evacuated. Others made their way through to Spain, and then Gibraltar before finally sailing home.

Having visited the D-Day beaches at the start of this trip, it was fascinating and sobering to discover a part of the pretty well documented history of WW2 that we never knew about – and probably still wouldn’t had we not visited St Valery-en-Caux.

With the weather unexpectedly improving to a glorious sunny day and clear blue sky on the day we headed for the ferry, our good fortune was boosted by the campsite only charging us the ACSI rate for all of our stay – woohoo!

And unusually, as we sat at the port in Dieppe waiting for the ferry, we knew we were not yet at the end of this year’s adventure, as we were returning to the UK but were then heading west for a final week of adventure and catching up with friends in Somerset and Dorset. What a great opportunity to compare and contrast campervan travel in the UK and mainland Europe!

And, as if to set the tone, as we entered the port of Newhaven, the good weather that had stayed with us across the Channel was clearly settled in the UK, and we were treated to an aerial display by paragliders over the old fort – another first for us!

S&J

Sérignan Part Two – and that heatwave! Sizzling in Sérignan…

 After our adventure along the Canal-du-midi, we clearly felt we had need of some serious down-time – so much so that the eventual length of our stay was a whopping 18 nights – probably the longest we’ve stayed anywhere on a camper van adventure! Not quite the type of exploration of France we had envisaged at the start of the trip, but a welcome reminder of the fabulous times we had spent on a very similar beach at Oliva in Spain.

So, what was it that kept us there and would we visit again?

The short bike ride along a dedicated cycle path between the town and beach was one of the factors that helped us laze away the days – and importantly, not need to move the van off the pitch until the day we left. It’s not really that hard to pack down and go off for supplies or even a day out, but when you’ve drifted into that laid-back vibe and there’s really no need, those folding bikes come into their own! Between us, there’s enough carrying capacity in panniers, rucksacks, baskets etc to fetch a few days’ supplies in one trip. And with local fruit and veg suppliers, an artisan bakery and a few decent resto/bars all within a 15 minute walk of the site (plus the site’s own shop) it all became very easy indeed to feel at home on our corner pitch, five minutes from the beach…

The beach is probably one of the biggest factors that made it so easy to stay, as it stretches for miles in each direction with easy access to safe and shallow warm water. There’s plenty of chance to raise the pulse rate with different water based sports or, as we opted, just to wander up and down the beach and enjoy the ever changing scenery and listen to the different languages drifting across the sand. Needing only to load up our festival trolley with whatever we felt we needed for the five minute walk to the beach, it soon became part of daily life to spend a few hours there most days. Or even an evening tipple and apero on the handily placed bench overlooking the beach…

The site itself is worthy of praise, and not just for its discounted ACSI prices! With touring pitches dotted amongst a range of cabins, and most pitches offering shade at some point of the day with imaginative and colourful planting, it was easy to see why it was so popular with campers that favoured a more traditional and slightly old-school site. With a sheltered pool, outdoor gym and free paddleboards and canoes on the beach for guests, as well as a children’s play area and ping pong, low key entertainment and a decently priced restaurant and shop (star buy – 1 litre of draught local rosé at €3!), it was pitched just right for us!

We’re not usually that bothered about the sanitary arrangements so long as they are kept clean, but we loved the fact that our nearest block was home to a small group of ‘hirondelles’ or barn swallows, that did an excellent job of keeping the insect population down (including it seemed, mosquitoes) as well as providing a daily display of aerial mastery accompanied by some jaw-dropping flight paths in and out of the block!

On the days that we were able to drag ourselves away from the beach, the town of Sérignan delivered a lot more than we were expecting. The main square where we had lunch with our friends on the first Sunday also hosted a market three days a week. As is the case in many provincial towns with more than one market day, different stallholders would visit on each of the days. 

Prices were reasonable (and very good at the road-side stores too). Over the length of our stay we worked out that we could survive easily without getting the van off site, and that there was more than enough to keep us well fed and entertained, with a small supermarket, poissonerie (where we discovered the delicious Limande Cardine which we think is a Megrim/Whiff), local wine producers, oyster bar, vegan café, butcher, more artisan boulangeries than you could shake a baguette at, and a pretty interesting range of restaurants. Plenty to make us confident that a return visit would still be delivering new places and experiences! 

For any fish experts out there, here’s that fish:

One of the entertaining things we noted as we settled into near-resident status, was the noise that wafted on the breeze from nearby camp sites of an evening. Noisy enough to be vexing on occasions, but always over by midnight, we were intrigued to find out exactly what was going on at one site where, night after night, we would hear the raucous DJ shouting loudly (if mainly indecipherably) including lots of numbers… With curiosity getting the better of us, we ended up taking a walk into the site, only to discover that it was a form of video karaoke/dance moves with the happy campers (of all ages) stomping their stuff to the on-screen animations, and the DJ (whose speakers were placed so that nearby camp sites heard as much if not more than those dancing and singing!) shouting out count-downs to new dances and then scoring participants at the end. And once we knew what it was, it became a whole lot less annoying, strangely!

And as our stay at Sérignan drew to a close, Mr B discovered a new talent for lock picking! After returning from one of our bike rides, he had noticed that his heavy duty chain lock had come undone on the return journey, and thought nothing of it when he locked the bike to the van. Except, when we came to set off for our next ride, the usual combination wouldn’t work – eek! Reaching for the hammer and hacksaw out of the tool box, and wondering why he hadn’t packed the bolt croppers, fortunately, Mrs B managed to head him off by suggesting that a quick trawl on the Interweb might be more useful. And so it was that after a couple of YouTube demos on how to crack a combination cycle lock, and a hot and sweaty 45 minute steep learning curve for Mr B, he managed to get it open! And as if to check on his learning new skills, a couple of days later Mrs B’s lock also changed its combination on its own (we never did work out how any of this happened) but after a mere five minutes, Mr B had it open. We are, of course, now reconsidering what we lock our bikes up with…

What eventually encouraged us to move on was the by now infamous ‘canicule’ or heatwave that had sat over France, delivering 41 degrees centigrade on site and then ‘cooling off’ to the mid 30s. The idea of arriving on the northern French coast a few days earlier and chilling in temperatures forecast in the low 20s gained more traction, until we eventually decided that we could probably do the drive north with maybe only a couple of overnight stops, leaving us three bonus days somewhere in Normandy before our ferry back to Blighty…

S&J